Dear Anthony
by renestra-karay
Summary: A History Boys movieverse fic. It's 1993, Anthony Timms gets a letter.


_Hey guys, Reene here, taking an hour or so off from revision to give you what is in fact the third chapter of a much longer fic I'm working on, though it __stands rather nicely (at least I thought so) by itself for now. Let me know what you think and I will/will not stick up the other chapters here as I finish them._

_As you can probably guess, I'm a poor student with a coffee jar of pennies to my name, I definately don't own the History Boys, Dag is however mine. _

_My fics may well contain spelling and grammar errors, I will always try to minimize this, I spell check and proofread, but unfortunately I am but human. If I get five or more corrections on a chapter I'll take it down and repost.__  
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__As I believe it to be an integral part of speech _**_I will use swearing if it fits the character and situation_**_. If swearing offends you or something please don't read._

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Three hours after the funeral, if you could call it that, the doorbell rang, Timms, curled into the sofa, can of Cafferey's in hand let Jenny get the door and listened to the conversation she had with their visitor.

"Um.. hi can I help you?" she clearly didn't recognise the caller.

"Sorry to disturb you Miss, I was looking for a Mr Timms?" the voice was fairly young, male and awkward talking to a complete stranger, Timms didn't recognise the voice though.

"I'm Jenny Lester his fiancée. Are you here for something to do with CleanCo? I'm afraid 'Tony isn't available to deal with work today..."

"Uh, no Miss, see I work...worked with Lieutenant Lockwood and was asked to pass something on to your fiancée, would it be possible for me to give it to him, or leave it here... this was the address Jamie said I should take it to..." Timms had stood to go into the hall when he heard his school friend's name mentioned, he opened the living room door into the hall.

"It's ok Jen. " He smiled sadly at her. "Would you like to come in Mister-"

"Lieutenant." Supplied the man, he was young, probably late twenties, same as Timms. "Lieutenant Darren Hagger, Dag usually though." He smiled sheepishly, shook Timms' hand and followed him back into the living room. Jenny kissed Timms' cheek and went back to her study to continue whatever she was currently working on.

Once they were both seated Lieutenant Hagger scratched the side of his head, his face showing the same awkward sad smile.

"James and I were good friends -joined up together, he was a right bastard for following orders even then..." Hagger started to joke a little then trailed off more awkwardly.

"Anyway a whiles back he told me this was for you." he offered over a plain white envelope with "A.T." scrawled in blue ink in the bottom right corner. Timms cautiously took the envelope and turned it over.

"I think I would read that alone if I were you Mr Timms." Hagger said gently "At least judging by the one he left me." Timms nodded, finding himself irrationally jealous of this stranger, who had clearly been close to Lockwood, and knew more about the man he'd grown into than Timms himself would ever have the chance to. He realised Hagger was saying something.

"I'm sorry, would you mind repeating that? I can't seem to keep focus today." He asked, shaking his head muzzily.

"I'm going to head out now, leave you to read that if you want to." Hagger gestured to the envelope. "But my details are on this." he put a scrap of paper on the coffee table "If you want to contact me about anything. It was nice to finally meet you Mr Timms, I only wish it was under better circumstances." Timms nodded and showed the other man to the door, in a monochrome haze he went back into the living room and sunk into a chair. He thumbed open the envelope, the first colour he focused on was the dark blue of the ink, scrawling handwriting he recognised with ease, on regular lined paper. He read slowly, taking in every word to make this last bit of Lockwood last as long as possible.

_Dear Anthony,_

_Yes I am going to bloody well use your first name, I've known you long enough, and this is important, well it's important to me at any rate, it's kind of the main event, death. Before you misinterpret that, no I do not particularly want to end up dead in the service of country ect. Who does? But I am aware that it's a possibility, so whilst I am hoping that I can burn these letters when I'm honourably discharged some years from now I am still going to write them, to you, to Martha and My parents, and to Dag, the lanky reprobate who should have just delivered this to you._

_We agreed to this,if he dies I deliver his letters. I die he delivers mine. We both die I figure between us we can break out of anything. We're a right morbid pair aren't we? _

_Anyway, I wanted to mention a few things, the first up is to say thanks, Cutlers, Uni, smokes and beer- it was all awsome wasn't it? It would have been less so without you. Alright so I'm a wuss, though since I'm now hypotheticly dead I can get away with it with minimal ribbing._

_Second point relates to that, I enjoy life, there's not a lot I'd change, except maybe the lottery numbers I picked last week and possibly I wouldn't have bought that kebab last time I was in England, but anyway, I digress._

_Third point is most important, and I mean this: go have a great life, your girl... what was her name? Gwen? Betty?... I just can't remember... I am of course kidding, Jenny is a lovely lady and I was dead pleased when you two announced your engagement and I wish you all the happiness you could want. (Not all the happiness in the world, that would be both diabetes inducing-ly sweet and mean no-one else got any happiness, and there's a couple of other people I owe some happiness to.)_

_Fourth, and final is to beg two favours: Martha, wondrous big sister that she is has provided me with two amazing nephews to spoil and is expecting twins at some point in the summer, please please please Anthony never let any of them get the wrong impression about me, I never plan to be a hero, if I died doing something stupid, tell them so when they're of an age to understand (though if I go I would rather it was doing something useful, dear lord I hope I didn't die from anything too stupid, I'd hate to go to the afterlife faintly embarrassed about the whole thing.) don't let anybody paint me as one, I'm a joker and a slacker, and once filled my C.O.'s boots with porridge. Tell them about Cutlers, tell them about Uni, but never ever say I was what I'm not._

_Second favour: I've written all the oxbridge boys addresses on the back of this sheet, including Posner's- he can't kill me for doing so if I'm already hypothetically dead. I know we've all split up somewhat over the past couple of years- Has Pos even told any of you where he is? Meet up at least once, smoke, drink and slag off each others bosses. See where things go from there._

_I hope my hypothetical funeral isn't too bad, if it's as bad as Hector's memorial I'm so coming back to haunt someone's ass._

_Love you man._

_James._

Timms sighed and scrubbed his face, putting down the letter he walked into the study and wrapped his arms around Jenny's shoulders, she looked up, concerned. He kissed the top of her head.

"Tony? Are you ok?"

"I think so." to his surprise, he meant it "I love you, so much Jen."


End file.
